Preparing for a possible invasion.

[AutomatedTeller]

Problem is, we can't hold a city against 15 MW and if they get a force into our core, we can kiss this game goodbye. I'd be ok with trying to figure out a way to get them to go West, away from the core and the mountains.

We might want to think about creating some fortifications, too - a musket in a fortification on a road will be tough to beat by MW.

Does Babe have Feudalism? Will we be facing MDI?

 

[cubsfan6506]

No the wouldn't because pikes require iron and they can't get it to that one square iron until magnetism.

 

[Niklas]

Lots of random musings:

For 148 gold we can rush horses in The New Yard (16 gold, 1 spt), The Pier (40 gold, 4 spt), The Marina (24 gold, 1 spt) and The Lodge (68 gold, 1 spt). The two first probably don't need to rush them until next turn, saving us some 20 gold. The on from The Lodge would take a turn to reach the front, from The Marina two. Chamsuri's Cove could switch over and finish without rushing, two turns to the front. The Institute could also rush (72 gold, 4 spt) but preferably next turn, the horse is at the front immediately. The Meeting Room (76 gold, 2 spt) would take two turns to the front. The Chamber could postpone its wonder build and crank a horse out immediately with no wasted shields, then one turn to the front. The Nursery is right at the front already (84 gold, 3 spt). All in all that's 9 horses for 332 gold, counting on the front towns to wait a turn before rushing. Also note that "the front" in this case is near The Nursery. All numbers likely need to be increased by one to mean "any point on the front".

Whatever else happens, we cannot let them get into our core. In other words, turning them west instead of east would be preferable. Making them land in the south instead of sailing on, likewise. We'd rather (temporarily) lose The Pier, The New Yard and The Nursery than having them threatening The Chamber or The Treasury.

We could attempt a rolling blockade, but they will likely spread out and there's no way we could cover it all. We have to make a stand somewhere, and preferably that would be somewhere of our own choosing.

Another thought is that some of the above projected rushings of horses could instead be used for catapults. They don't have lethal bombard on ships though, so we can't threaten them that way. But they might soften spears/pikes.

CAII shows a pike and a mace in the 4-stack of ships closest to us. It's probably a bug, so we can't trust it very much. But it would definitely be foolish not to expect pikes and maces, however unlikely it would be that they actually have them.

Our infrastructure is less than perfect. In particular we could use a road on the mountain tile 2E of The Nursery, to make a decent diagonal between the two shorelines. Another on the Gems would also be nice. If they don't land within the next 4-5 turns, we should have the workers to do this. All other improvements can wait. 1S of the gold would also be nice, but of less priority (only really useful if the other two are already in place).

We have only one wellplaced location to upgrade pikes to muskets, in The Silo. Our current two mainland pikes would both take one turn to reach it, another for the upgrade, and another three to reach the front, and yet another before they could be put in a blockade. Each upgrade is 90 gold. Worth it? Another idea is to upgrade them and send them to The Chamber, to protect our capitol. They could upgrade in The Admiralty and reach The Chamber in 3 and 4 turns from now respectively. BABE can unload near The Chamber 3 turns from now at the earliest.

We have 6 ACs, 1 horse and 2 maces at or near the front.

 

[Paul#42]

Does Babe have Feudalism? Will we be facing MDI?

No the wouldn't because pikes require iron and they can't get it to that one square iron until magnetism.

How can you be sure they don't have a source at home?
Maybe they do the connect / diconnect game?

We'd better not rely on such an assumption...

 

[Niklas]

I guess what he meant was that they can't update in their one-tile town off of SABER, since iron couldn't be connected there until Magnetism. Which is very true.

 

[zyxy]

As time was nearly up I played while Niklas was musing. Sorry.

The New Yard will build a horse on the IT, The Pier and The Igloo in 2 turns, The Institute in 3. Rushing could be done in several towns. Question is: how many horses do we need?

I was sending the pikes up north to the other island. Of course they can turn back if we want to.

Obviously we cannot cover the whole front, however, smaller landing parties may be destroyed a bit easier than big ones. And perhaps BABE will get disillusioned when they cannot land and try elsewhere. After all, I think SABER couldn't cover the whole coast either...

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I think we have to keep them from landing on mountains, as well. If they do that, then we can't attack them cause we can't kill pikes on mountains with AC or MDI. So we have to block the mountains... and, unfortunately, we have to keep them blocked.

I think we need a lot of horse - they are inexpensive and mobile.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

Some more thoughts - The Admiralty has a warrior in it - that can be used for blocking purposes near the core.

I am thinking our MDI should move towards the core - they can be used to help block the eastern side, but we dont' want them caught on the west side on a feint to the east. In the least, I don't think they should go further east than the one is.

If BABE does split their forces, I definitely want the MDI on the west side.

 

[Niklas]

I agree with AT on all accounts. In particular I think we need more horses that what we have any reasonable chance of building, so no need to hold back.

 

[donsig]

I think we should crank out as many horses as we can and throw up as big a blockade as we can - and try some diplomacy to extend our peace treaty!

 

[zyxy]

Perhaps we can use the slow movers to block mountain and hill tiles?

If we are short on troops, do we want to switch TC to a musket?

 

[tomasjj]

Can we get any assistance from our allies? If we can, I think we should ask for it asap.
I presume that will have to be gold, as units can't be transfered safely, except by the Babes.

 

[Niklas]

We should be getting 50 gpt from FREE and 20 gpt from SABER from the start of the invasion, according to our treaties with them. Maybe we should send some notices in both diretcions?

 

[tomasjj]

We should be getting 50 gpt from FREE and 20 gpt from SABER from the start of the invasion, according to our treaties with them. Maybe we should send some notices in both diretcions?

The sooner the better imo.
If Babe has another target than us, which not very likely considering their silence, we pay it back anyways.

 

[General_W]

Of course, a rolling blockade will not work if they split up to search out our entire coast.

To me, this is the most relevant point.

I'd suggest that we wait for the forces to split, immediatly offer the smaller force a place to land, and try to kill the invaders in stages.
I don't think we can get enough units to totally stop them - so let's control where they land, if we can.

IF their fleet staying in one group (seems unlikely) then of course a rolling blockade would be fine. I'll activate our DAB treaties with the next save... or should we send out the call now?
I can send off letters later today if The Council believes we should.

 

[General_W]

Ok - I deserve some kind of massive x-post award.
My internet has been giving me fits, and for some reason it loaded me to page 7 of this thread, and I didn't notice there was a page 8!

I'll get working on those letter and have them ready in about 6 hours.

with the plan to build lots of horse, try to focus BABE to the west, and allow them to land in small parties.

Also - is there any chance to get another boat out somewhere? If we can sink a Galley or two, that'd be helpful.

 

[zyxy]

OK, so do we want to spend some cash to rush horses? We could build some horses from our northwestern holdings, but each horse will cost 50-100 gold or so (depending on how many shields were invested already).

 

[donsig]

Yes, I think we should invest in some horses. We should be gettign some gold back from DAB to cover it. And if we don't get invaded, it's a small loss of gold and we go back to plan A.

Yes, I'd switch The Chamber to a musket and use the slow movers to block the high ground.

Should we consider more settlers to ICS the west?

I also think using the rolling blockade to funnel them westward is good. I also like the General's idea to let smaller forces land so we can pick them off. Trouble is, I think they can unite all the ships in view in two turns. The closest ships can't really get to us faster unless they risk a turn in the ocean.

 

[General_W]

Posting both letters here for easy discussion/editing of them both.

Dear FREE Allies,

We have dire news! Our scouts have just sighted a massive armada of BABE warships off our Western Coast. We’re attaching a screenshot of the approaching flotilla.

We believe that this can only mean that BABE intends to invade us. (our treaty expires with them on turn 129… but we’re not at all sure they’ll wait that long to attack. Rest assured, they’ll take a lashing in The RoundTable if they invade before their treaty is expired).

We therefore need to activate the “Defense Against All” portion of our treaty, and ask you to send us 50 gold per turn, so that we can begin to rush defenders.
We don’t think we have enough units to totally block our coast, but we hope to be able to funnel BABE to where we want them, then destroy them with our Ancient Cavalry when they land.

Hopefully this shadow will soon pass from our shores.

To the Alliance of Blue Science!
General_W, speaking with the voice of The Council

Spoiler :

…and to Saber:

Dear Saber Friends,

As you are probably aware, our scouts have just sighted the BABE warships off our Western Coast. We’re attaching a screenshot of the approaching flotilla, though we know you can probably still see their wakes.

We believe that this can only mean that BABE intends to invade us. (our treaty expires with them on turn 129… but we’re not at all sure they’ll wait that long to attack. Rest assured, they’ll take a lashing in The RoundTable if they invade before their treaty is expired).

We therefore need to put the shoe on the other foot, and activate our “Defense Against BABE” treaty, and ask you to send us 20 gold per turn, so that we can begin to rush defenders.
We don’t think we have enough units to totally block our coast, but we hope to be able to funnel BABE to where we want them, then destroy them with our Ancient Cavalry when they land.

Hopefully this shadow will soon pass from our shores. Of course, if we manage to dodge the bullet, we’ll return 50% of the gold you send us, as you have done for us.

Your friends in need,
General_W, speaking with the voice of The Council

Spoiler :

EDIT: SENT 08/27/07

Ok to send both?
Any edits before the go?
I’ll send as soon as we have a quorum* of support.

*Quorum to be defined at the discretion of the Chairman of Foreign Relations

 

[General_W]

Also – I just had a thought on defense tactics…

A) Given that we agree it’s unlikely we’ll be able to totally prevent BABE from landing
and
B) Therefore we really want to prod BABE to our West coast to make landings there

Instead of making our military builds 100% on horses (which I agree we’ll certainly need a lot more of) why don’t we consider peeling off The Bayou and The Pier and maybe The Admiralty to build some more Galleys? Galleys are the same cost as a horseman, and have the potential to kill 3 units at a stroke… and maybe also discourage BABE from sailing around towards our Core.

I know our odds aren’t as good at sea, but with all the gold we’ll hopefully have coming in soon, I was just thinking it might be worth diverting a bit of that into some navy to screen our SouthEast/Core.

Just a thought I wanted to throw into the mix.
Please tear it apart if I'm missing something.